SWA/ATA codeshare ending?

[7S3W7A]

The whole thing was simple. Had ATA gone chapter 7, MDW gates would have gone up for bid and there is no way the City of Chicago would have sold them all to SWA. So they get into the loan sharking business. Here's some money, pay us back at the end of the month. Don't have the money? no problem, we'll just take one of your gates as payment. Not enough to meet the vic next month? No problem, we'll just take another gate. All your gates are gone? Well, we'll sell the stock and you can owe someone else.
You've already got a deal worked out with AWA? A deal that integrates the list and the employees keep their jobs? Well, we'll place a little call to Boeing and see how they feel about AWA's plans for the ATA leases. Hmmm, imagine that, they didn't like your plan as much as you thought they would. Don't worry, we'll make the whole thing easier by installing a puppet to be your new CEO, a man who couldn't possibly have anything other than the best interests of ATA at heart.

Big business in the new millenium. Find a way to get around the cumbersome shackels of a free marketplace and get 14? gates at MDW without having to bother with bids and anti-trust issues.

With any luck, when the violation is finally complete, ATA will be able to limp back to some charter/military work.

There is a lot of talk about the TWA/AA similarities. There is one major difference, however. TWA guys have an AA number and will be recalled someday.

Business is tough. You don't like it, go do something else. SWA isn't in the game to make friends and save other companies employees. If we have to take you down to help our business then so be it. Tough luck. Get management who doesn't suck and help yourself.

Only the strong surive in the business world. Deal.

 

[capt. megadeth]

Business is tough. You don't like it, go do something else. SWA isn't in the game to make friends and save other companies employees. If we have to take you down to help our business then so be it. Tough luck. Get management who doesn't suck and help yourself.

Only the strong surive in the business world. Deal.

WOW!!!! Tough luck eh? Hopefully you won't be on the receiving end of that TOUGH LUCK one day. Of course you won't....SWA is infallable right?

 

[Hamburger]

If you notice, I never said anything about it being anything but business. However business is supposed to have rules. I don't see how 14 gates could've been had at MDW without a little circumventing of the rules. But you are correct, business is business.

From your other posts, you seem upset at the treatment you recieve from SWAPA and those greedy senior pilots. My favorite is when you declare that you are dusting off your logbooks to apply at FedEx. Run out of LUV, have we?

What's the matter, losing pay and days off? Don't like the new work rules? It's just business.

Only the strong survive in the Business World. Deal.

 

[atafan]

Business is tough. You don't like it, go do something else. SWA isn't in the game to make friends and save other companies employees. If we have to take you down to help our business then so be it. Tough luck. Get management who doesn't suck and help yourself.

Spoken like a real jacka$$. I remember some legacy airline pilots say the exact thing, you know, many of those who are in or were in CH11.

Get management who doesn't suck and help yourself.

When was the last time you "Got Management" or had anything to do with the success of your airline other than just pushing the controls.

By the way, I don't expect SWA or any airline to "save" my little airline. We have been flying around the world for the past 34 years just fine. We might have had a bad year or two but we are coming back and don't need anything from jerks like you.

Jacka$$!

My apologies to the other 99.9% of SWA pilots who either don't feel the same as this jerk or at least have the courtesy not to say it outside of the crew room.

 

[SWA/FO]

Yeah, well it's better than the bull$hit "preferential interview" ATA guys got from SWA.

I guess, Chicago Express didn't qualify for the Free Pass in the interview process. Preferential interview doesn't mean - "hey can you start Monday?" It means = we will call you ahead of other applicants (that have been in the system longer then you) becuase we feel bad for you. How many people have gotten your version of the Free Pass at UPS? Besides you? Or did you have to interview there - LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE?!

imp: "its hard out here for a Pimp"

 

[CaptSeth]

It means = we will call you ahead of other applicants (that have been in the system longer then you) becuase we feel bad for you.

Actually, it was pressure from the City of Chicago as a precondition of getting control of our gates; otherwise, it wouldn't have even been that. Feelings never entered into the picture.

 

[SWA/FO]

Actually, Southwest has done it before for other companies. We have had job fairs for other airline employees. Don't think the City of Chicago made Southwest be nice. Now, we might have let Chicago think they made us do it, but we would have done it anyway. Feelings play a big part of that. Fact is nobody but SWA was in position to fly "the required number" of flights out of those gates.

 

[CaptSeth]

Whatever.

 

[SWA/FO]

Did you mean to say "you're right SWA/FO" cus thats what I'm hearing.

 

[HalinTexas]

SWA/FO, it was in the papers in Chicago. It was told to our union and our company. It's public record.

Daley said there would be no net loss of jobs at MDW because of this deal, otherwise the city would not sign off.

While SWA has been hiring many of our pilots of late, and it's much appreciated, they haven't hired 10% of our employees. (BTW, you're getting some good people and there are plenty more still here that want to work for SWA.)

 

[HalinTexas]

deleted

 

[StopNTSing]

Daley said there would be no net loss of jobs at MDW because of this deal, otherwise the city would not sign off.

A Chi-town politician who made a promise he didn't keep?
I'm shocked! SHOCKED, I tell you!

 

[Pickle]

Business is tough. You don't like it, go do something else. SWA isn't in the game to make friends and save other companies employees. If we have to take you down to help our business then so be it. Tough luck. Get management who doesn't suck and help yourself.

Only the strong surive in the business world. Deal.

Apply your same logic to a problem facing SWA today.
The Wright Amendment.
Tough luck.
Deal.

 

[atafan]

Pickle,

Save your breath, guys like him think they are management and don't realize that what airline you're flying at is mostly the luck of the draw. I know of plenty of pilots who chose one airline over another and that airline either furloughed or went out of business. Just go back only around 5-6 years ago, UAL, AAL, NWA, DAL, SWA were all hiring aggressively. Many pilots wanted to go to the top 5 and wouldn't even consider SWA, they chose poorly then. Fast forward another 5-6 years and SWA may be the one in trouble.

Pick a company, stick with them as long as the ride lasts and know that you can only do your job the best way possible and personally have little to do with the future outcome of your company. Arrogance will eventually destroy everyone that thinks they are bullet proof.

 

[SWA/FO]

You are 100% right. I hope you guys are nice to us too.

 

[Fly-diver]

Pick a company, stick with them as long as the ride lasts and know that you can only do your job the best way possible and personally have little to do with the future outcome of your company.

This sentence speaks volumes. You won't find many SWA pilots who believe their actions have little to do with the future of the company.

 

[SWA/FO]

I personally have never heard the SWA/FO claim to be bullet proof.

imp:

 

[canyonblue737]

Pick a company, stick with them as long as the ride lasts and know that you can only do your job the best way possible and personally have little to do with the future outcome of your company.

No one at SWA believes that for a second. Every single leg our pilots strive to save gas and take pride in under burning when possible to the extent we check it, every single leg without fail. Captains and First Officers clean the a/c with rubber gloves, a trash sack and a portable vacuum whenever we have a chance. We greet passengers and say good bye nearly every leg. We hoist strollers and bags and push wheelchairs, not because anyone makes us, but we believe we contribute to the the future outcome of the company. The ops agents here smile, and at their fellow employees too! The rampers work hard and the crew schedulers are professional and courteous even when JAing you. The flight attendants call to check on you most of the time and most show a lot of spirit. The reality is everyone believe that they have a lot to do with the future outcome of their company and so far, 3 decades running, the proof has been in the pudding.

 

[atafan]

canyonblue737,

I agree with you completely! After I made the comment about pilots have nothing to do but push controls, I knew I wasn't saying what I meant.

Believe me, the pilots have kept ATA going for many years. ATA has been doing more with less for many years. When you have an airplane half way around the world at an airport that most can't even pronounce, your company support is minimal to say the least. Our crews go way above and beyond what you can even imagine to keep the airplanes flying. I can remember working 24+ hour duty days, physically fueling aircraft to buying crackers and sodas for the passengers with my personal credit card. This doesn't even scratch the surface of what our pilots have done in the past and do everyday to keep an operation like ATA flying.

What I meant was that the pilots have nothing to do with HR hiring of FA's or ground crew, we have nothing to do with arranging leases, we have nothing to do with route selections or well you get my point.

Pilots can work over time, clean cabins, greet passengers with chuckles and smiles, speed your way and save every drop of fuel you can but if you have management choose the wrong planes at the wrong lease rates, hire disgruntled gate agents and FA's and construct a bad route system, you will go out of business. I believe the ATA pilots through our positive spirit and can do attitude have kept this airline alive to fight another day.

The employees of SWA are truly blessed with superior management and great employees, take pride in that.

Respectfully

 

[capt. megadeth]

I guess, Chicago Express didn't qualify for the Free Pass in the interview process. Preferential interview doesn't mean - "hey can you start Monday?" It means = we will call you ahead of other applicants (that have been in the system longer then you) becuase we feel bad for you. How many people have gotten your version of the Free Pass at UPS? Besides you? Or did you have to interview there - LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE?!

Uh, actually, before SWA became all high and all mighty, if you were C8, you pretty much got the job if you wanted to work there (that is.....the few people that did want to work there since it was subpar at the time). I guess I am just jealous though because that was before I had the quals and I am so devastated that I don't work for SWA. I don't know if I will ever truly get over it. I had to go to a doctor and get some Prozac just to be able to make it through the day......TOOL!

 

[Hamburger]

There is no doubt the attitude of the pilots and all the employees have gotten SW where they are today. You all have reason to be proud. Unfortunately, all it takes is a couple of bad decisions by management and things hit the crapper fast. All the rubber gloves and smiles in the world can't change that.

He was right about ATA guys being out there without a net. They've had to sleep in the plane while a revolution is going down at the hotel, out of pocket every mode of transportation you could imagine (rickshaws, fishing boats,...),loads of refugees starting cooking fires in the aisles..... A pilot group extremely dedicated to going above and beyond. It took Mickelsons about a year to piss it all away.

It's going to be a big five years for SWA. No longer the outsider underdog, now you've got the bullseye on your back. Everyone is stealing plays from your book. Everyone has the low prices these days, stole your niche. If you think customers are going to stay loyal to your product when they can save five bucks, you've forgotten how you got here. They've got assigned seating, first class, television, Direct flights.... You're such a lean machine, there's no fat left to trim. Fuel Hedge running out. Legacies are still alive.... Rapid Expansion (where has that gone wrong in the past). Jumping into markets that have been historically shunned by SouthWest, but coveted by "traditional airlines", you know, the ones that love to go bankrupt.

Not nails in the coffin by any means, but don't kid yourself into thinking it can't all go wrong fast enough to make your head spin with just a couple of bad decisions.

A lot of those currently on the bottom have spent their time on top. Granted, you have an extremely good position, but None stay on top forever.

 

[SWA/FO]

I am so devastated that I don't work for SWA.

The truth comes out. I think your last sentence ment to read "I AM A TOOL" - cus thats what I'm hearing. Enjoy the sort & catch a nap in the lazyboy room.

 

[atafan]

You're such a lean machine, there's no fat left to trim.

Not true at all.

That's when they come after labor.


Back to the original point of the thread....

I am sure that if anyone can adapt SWA will adapt, that is where ATA fits into the scenario. By using the codeshare with ATA SWA can get feed, ie their presence is felt, from cities that SWA would not normally or can't fly to. I believe the codeshare will be extremely important to the future of SWA and ATA and NO Hal it is not ending.

 

[HalinTexas]

NO Hal it is not ending.

Hey, I didn't come to that conclusion. I just passed on information. Go back to the start of this thread and look who inferred that conclusion.

If SWA goes to HI and starts Int'l service, what's the point of the codeshare?

BTW, I don't think one LGA-HOU flight has gone out on time since we started it. Do you think SWA would ever let that happen or continue?

 

[capt. megadeth]

Enjoy the sort & catch a nap in the lazyboy room.

I don't know if I can.....I have insomnia all the time because I am so upset that I don't fly white trash around all day long.

 

[elcid]

The truth comes out. I think your last sentence ment to read "I AM A TOOL" - cus thats what I'm hearing. Enjoy the sort & catch a nap in the lazyboy room.

Not cool, bro... not cool.

 

[atafan]

Hey, I didn't come to that conclusion.

I was answering your question not predicting your conclusion.

I agree though, if ATA doesn't perform we will destroy the codeshare agreement all by ourself.

 

[SWA/FO]

I don't know if I can.....I have insomnia all the time because I am so upset that I don't fly white trash around all day long.

You just carry all their ebay $hit in the back. Arn't you being a little racisit there? Picking on one race? Why don't you make fun of all of them? As far as color, all I see is GREEN baby, as in MONEY.

imp:

elcid,

Not cool, bro... not cool.

I'm not trying to be cool, just trying to be a imp: . It can be hard out here for guys like the SWA/FO, but he means well. See the SWA/FO did a freight job for awhile, he might have somewhat of an idea of what it is like, you know the "sort", naps in da lazyboy....

Many people claim to understand the SWA/FO's current job, when their only experience was landing behind us at MDW or what they read on flightinfo.com.

 

[CaptainMark]

You just carry all their ebay $hit in the back. As far as color, all I see is GREEN baby, as in MONEY.

U need to compare SWAs earings and UPSs earings..u and your little company have no idea what earings are...UPS probably netted today what SWA grosses in 5 years...u don't have a clue what green is...it's all about the cargo..CAPTmegadeath also has an 11% b-fund...but u have no idea what that is! now get back to work..u have 8 legs left before the sun goes down and those hillbillies have to get to LIT...

 

[SWA/FO]

CaptainMark,

Where you been baby? Real nice, you know I lose sleep everynight (while your out there flying) over what I make. Actually, I really never bring this topic up. Anyway, my arguement was over what she called our passengers.

Of course you make way more money then I ever will or my company ever will. You'll also age much quicker. Might you live to spend it all? Maybe. I sure hope you do, so you can keep being a pain in my a$$ on flightinfo.com. You getting sick of people asking you if you want to be a Commerical Pilot someday?